sub. phr. (old).—A pad or cushion worn by women to extend the dress at the back; the equivalent of the modern bustle, or dress-improver: also CORK RUMPS (q.v.), but see BIRD-CAGE.
1601. JONSON, The Poetaster, II., i. Nor you nor your house was so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself from my hood and my farthingal, to these BUM-ROWLS, and your whale-bone bodice.
1663. KILLIGREW, The Parson’s Wedding (Old Plays), XI., 460. Those worthies [of a bawd] rais’d her from the flat petticoat and kercher, to the gorget and BUM-ROLL.
1824. NARES, Glossary, s.v. BUM-ROLLS. Stuffed cushions, used by women of middling rank, to make their petticoats swell out, in lieu of the farthingales, which were more expensive.
